The Government's policies are either right or not, reward should not come into it

THERE were some defining moments in the long campaign which ended last Friday with the local and European elections. A smirking Enda Kenny asking a woman in Galway with an English accent where she came from, for example, and being reminded by a man in the crowd that "lots of Irish have English accents, Enda, it's called emigration".

THERE were some defining moments in the long campaign which ended last Friday with the local and European elections. A smirking Enda Kenny asking a woman in Galway with an English accent where she came from, for example, and being reminded by a man in the crowd that "lots of Irish have English accents, Enda, it's called emigration".

Then there was Gerry Adams being asked about the involvement of Lord Mountbatten's murderer in Sinn Fein's election campaign and replying that he "values the contribution of every republican", as if blowing up an 83-year-old woman and two teenage boys was as normal a part of getting involved in politics as dropping leaflets through letterboxes.

Nothing, though, quite captured the moral lassitude of the Irish political class right now quite so much as Pat Rabbitte on Newstalk's Right Hook last Wednesday when asked about Labour's dire poll ratings. "I can tell you're cheesed," George pressed the minister. "I am a bit," Rabbitte conceded, "because, you know, I think people have forgotten too quickly how grave was the situation in the dark days of the winter of 2010 and '11 when we took over ... "

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